Bloodborne Online
by Racke
Summary: Kayaba had had a dream once. It'd been childish and innocent, and with jaded eyes he did everything in his power to warp and destroy it. And so the Nightmare begins.


XXX

 **Story** : [Bloodborne Online]

 **Summary** : Kayaba had had a dream once. It'd been childish and innocent, and with jaded eyes he did everything in his power to warp and destroy it. And so the Nightmare begins.

 **Crossover** : (Sword Art Online) / (Bloodborne)

 **Genre** : Horror, Adventure

XXX

From an early age, Kayaba had dreamt of a castle floating in the sky. A place where the only true measure of a man was the strength of their sword-arm and their willingness to fight.

But the more he dreamt of it, the more it seemed to slip through his fingers.

What was a humanity ruled by the sword but a collection of violent beasts? How could a castle floating in the sky be anything other than a dream or an illusion? And how could it be beautiful and wonderful if all it was was madness and violence?

A dream of childish wonder and longing, tainted by an adult's cynicism and bitterness.

So when he found himself staring at the first prototype of the NerveGear in his hands, he knew what he had to do.

The technology could be abused and distorted in a thousand different ways, and the realizations of just how closely the system interacted with the human brain would most assuredly lead to people dying over it. Whether it be by fighting over it, or someone abusing the technology for their own gain, or something else entirely. In the end, the NerveGear would change the world.

A maddening dream-machine which would only serve to drag humanity into hell.

And that was the first true spark of inspiration for Bloodborne Online. A hellish nightmare of overlapping hallucinations, all hell-bent on the death of the players, and with no way out except to murder their way through their fellow beasts until one player still clinging to their sanity would be able to confront the final puppet-master of it all. Would be able to confront the mad and embittered god of that world.

He'd dreamt of a castle floating in the sky, where the only thing to matter would be a man's willingness to fight and their skill with a sword.

He called it Bloodborne Online, and it was designed to do the opposite of what every other showcasing of the NerveGear's abilities had done. This wasn't the creation of a shiny, new and perfectly intractable world; instead, it was the hazy fantasy of a nightmare.

And the marketing-department loved it.

XXX

The NerveGear was more electrical than it was biological, but the way it interacted directly with the brain had raised more than a few worries about possible addictions. After all, if the brain is convinced to produce certain things on a regular basis, it can easily convince itself to simply continue producing those things all on its own, outside of the source.

It wasn't anything as potentially harmful as actual drugs, seeing as how the chemicals were already going to be present inside the brain regardless. But considering how it was entirely possible for someone's brain-chemistry to get distorted into something very unpleasant – even outside of the direct stimuli that the NerveGear presented – there were a lot of worries about the NerveGear leaving scars on its users.

So they ran tests. Lots and lots of tests.

In the end, after rigorous testing and tweaking, it was cleared for launch as an immersion-device that wouldn't leave any permanent scars beyond what the users decided to cause themselves. Whenever any user interacted with any kind of series of events, there was always going to be a risk of their brain receiving both psychological and biological scars, that was just part of being human.

Needless to say, upon the release of Kayaba's masterpiece – the single most anticipated game of the year – Kayaba went ahead and tweaked those NerveGear-settings just a little bit.

In a game which demanded that you desperately cling to your humanity lest you fall into maddened beasthood, it'd be very unbecoming of him to not include that madness in the experience for his players as well. A story that only NPCs participated in was just a useless cinematic experience, and the NerveGear really made all of it so _easy_.

Items that strengthened the beast-blood in the players, items that helped prevent it, and a piece of technology which would inflict the madness that went with it onto the player.

A beast was powerful, but a beast was just a beast, and if they went too far in their search for power then they'd be lost forever in their blind bloodthirst. As for how far was too far? Why, that was the beauty of the NerveGear. It all came down to how an individual's brain responded to the stimuli that their brains would temporarily be forced to produce.

Some could probably take it for years without ill-effects, others might last a few days. It all depended on how long it took for the brain to convince itself that it was supposed to continue producing the stimuli even without the NerveGear's insistence, and that was a wholly individual kind of thing.

What better way to laugh and spit at the idea of a glory-filled world of adventure that was equal for all who wanted to prove themselves, than to show such emphasis on what everyone already knew was there? Humans weren't created to be equal, they were created as gigantic masses of failed and part-faulty code from millions of years of evolution. And now that diversity would save some, just as it damned others, through no fault of their own.

These were the rules of this perfect, nightmarish distortion of his childhood dream, and the thought of it made Kayaba smile.

XXX

Half the reason Bloodborne Online was as anticipated as it was, was the sheer bizarreness of how its multiplayer-parts functioned.

Most games like it included big communities, with guilds and raid-bosses and the like, for players to join forces for quests and simple companionship. It's what made an MMO into an MMO. So of course Kayaba had designed his strange masterpiece into being something completely different.

Kirito doubted that it was going to catch on with other games, if only because – no matter how successful it might become in this particular game – every other game was designed around creating a solid realistic world, rather than some kind of ethereal halfway-real dream of battle.

The game's multiplayer-parts simply reflected that design-decision too vividly for anyone else to try and copy it without running the risk of copyright-infringement on the general idea of the game.

Every player was to set out on an individual questline, with individual consequences to the 'world' that they walked through. For example, if 'Player A' killed an NPC then they'd never see that NPC again, but 'Player B' would still be able to talk to said NPC without any problems. In reality, it was a single-player game where sometimes the game could 'overlap' into either PvE-cooperation or outright PvP.

As far as the lore was concerned, it was easy enough to simply excuse it with 'dreams are weird'. And, despite how beloved guild-features and the like were to the gaming-community as a whole, the idea of being able to play a game as 'the chosen one' – whilst still able to sort of have a community to rely upon if things got a bit too hard – was much appreciated.

Kirito in particular was really looking forward to doing everything in his power to avoid relying on someone else.

It was a pleasant change from his current lifestyle of barely being able to call the place he lived 'home', even as everyone tried so hard to include him into the family that he didn't belong to.

Wandering around a nightmare-world on his lonesome where everything tried to kill him, sounded a lot better than whatever else he might've had planned for the weekend.

Of course, despite his enthusiasm towards the whole thing, Kirito very quickly stumbled across a tiny little problem with the game.

It was the same thing two-hundred-thousand other players experienced at the same time.

"My name is Kayaba Akihiko, and this is where your happy little dreams turns into a nightmare. You'll be trapped in here, unable to log out and unable to be saved by the outside world, until you reach and defeat the Final Boss." There was an impossible sense of a cruel smile, even as there was no face to the apparition leaning over them as they lay strapped to the metal beds of the makeshift hospital. "And, as a final warning, Beasthood is not so much a mechanic as it is... a way of life." The apparition leaned back, Kirito's vision fading into black. "Welcome to Bloodborne Online, dear Hunters. The only way out is forward."

XXX

In the wake of that introduction, the first thing the players learned was how to communicate with each other. Or, it was the first thing they aimed towards doing. The game itself was designed to unlock the multiplayer features only once the 'story' had progressed beyond a certain point.

So, more truthfully, the first thing they truly learned after that ominous introduction from the game's creator was to grit their teeth against the pain of being repeatedly hacked to death by the makeshift weapons of angry townsfolk.

Which kind of set the mood rather brilliantly for the whole experience. It was one thing to be trapped in a hellscape of a world, unable to escape back to their homes, unable to communicate with the others trapped in there with them, and always remaining uncertain as to the fate of their bodies in the real world. It was another thing entirely to add a very realistic sense of pain on top of that.

By the time they finally managed to sort out a working kind of messaging system to each other, several different people tried to do a head-count of who'd made it that far. They all got different numbers, because everyone cleared the game at different speeds and so new people continued to trickle into unlocking the multiplayer feature, but after a while even that seemed to taper off. And even the most optimistic of numbers barely accounted for half the players.

Two-hundred-thousand players, and – with the single cruelty of physical pain, on top of the rest – Kayaba had already defeated half of them.

XXX

Kirito started to realize the problem of his attempts at completely soloing the game somewhere during the second month.

The first month had been fine. Scary, filled with monster and pain, depressing, frustrating, and horribly scarring on both the emotional and mental level. But nothing that would've made him reconsider his initial decision to be self-reliant to the last. Sure, he'd make use of notes left behind by other players and leave notes of his own in turn, but there was no need to go asking for help.

The second month, that changed.

It wasn't that he encountered a sudden difficulty-spike, or a boss that was impossible to deal with on his own. It was simply that he'd stumbled across the Doll in the Dream sleeping on her perch, silent breaths and barely-shifting stillness, and kind of broken down crying.

Turns out, asocial tendencies or not, when people called humans 'social animals' they really weren't kidding around. Kirito hadn't talked to a real person in two months. He'd talked to NPCs who were seemingly all some degree of insane – the exception being two sisters who'd-... honestly, the less said about that particular series of encounters the better – and he'd screamed as beast-humans stabbed him to death whilst shouting at him to 'go away'.

And then the Doll had just been sitting there in the Dream, her face as expressionless as always, but somehow impossibly softened in her sleep. And Kirito had ended up kneeling next to her sleeping form, crying, until she woke up and started asking him if he was alright in her regular awkwardly hollow voice.

That was the moment that Kirito decided that he was in desperate need of more social contact, his pride be damned.

It'd taken him a few days to figure out a way to contact Argo, and once he'd managed to explain the whole isolation-side-effect to her she set out to spread the word. Kirito still didn't very much like talking to other players, but that was more because it usually devolved into a mixture of horribly-distorted speech – that either sounded like it was spoken underwater or shouted from a football-field away – and charades.

Kirito didn't care if it was their only option when it came to communicating person-to-person, waving his arms around and doing jumping-jacks was still way too embarrassing for him to expose himself to it for any prolonged stretches of time. He'd stick to the notes left with the Messengers.

Even if Argo's attempts at creating a working newspaper was a mixture of laughable and horribly frustrating both. Mostly because the Messengers didn't always remember that they weren't supposed to chew up the 'extra' paper, which meant that it was rare to find a newspaper that wasn't already half-eaten. Or worse.

Kirito had it on good authority that Argo was caught somewhere in between begging the creepy little creatures on her bare knees to do her favors, and was at the same time perfectly willing to punt the whole lot of them into an abyss of eternal suffering. They were clearly very frustrating to work with, and Kirito was infinitely grateful that he didn't have her problems.

Still, it was... nice to deal with other people's problems from time to time. Helping slower players with a boss whose move-set he'd already memorized, helping players on his own level with bosses that he was still stuck on for a chance to gain a better understanding of how to beat them. In comparison to slowly driving himself mad from bosses that kept killing him in new and painfully inventive ways, it was almost like a vacation.

It helped that his luck usually landed him with people he'd already met before.

There were the other front-line-players like Asuna and Agil. Then there were people like Klein, who somehow managed to keep a semi-guild going for themselves and a few close friends; and Argo, whose contact-network was among the largest in the game.

Of course, it wasn't like they ever really sat down and had long and deep conversations, but it was nice to at least see a familiar face when you were called to assist someone with a boss.

The closest he'd gotten to a deep conversation had been him awkwardly patting a tiny girl on the head, trying to reassure her that everything would work out, without her completely breaking out in sobs. Nice girl, but very much not suited for a game with as much blood and gore as Kayaba's little nightmare.

It was weird, the things a person could get used to. Kirito didn't even really notice the way he kept getting drenched in blood all the time, anymore. It was warm and sticky, so he'd know if he was covered in it, but it was just so normal that he didn't really think about it one way or the other.

He did however very much notice the way that another cute girl flinched away from him when she first saw him. Turns out, she had a bit of a trauma from some of the NPC-hunters, and he looked fairly gruesome after having helped her dispatch the beasts swarming her.

She hadn't even really tried to call him. Just... kind of fallen on top of her beckoning-bell, causing it to ring at a most opportune moment.

Kirito hadn't laughed for nearly four months.

He'd forgotten what it sounded like.

Her name was Sachi, and her embarrassed pout was only making him laugh harder.

XXX

Sachi was horribly unsuited for Yharnam. To the point where Kirito was more than a bit amazed that she'd managed to even reach far enough to unlock multiplayer.

She flinched when she ought to be dodging, she flinched when she ought to be hitting, she flinched when she ought to be-... Sachi was just really awful at fighting in general, and the blood and gore just made it worse.

Kirito couldn't exactly call himself fantastic at the game either, considering how reliant it was on moving his 'physical' body around. He was used to controllers. Still, there'd been his grandfather and his obsession with kendo, so it wasn't like he was a complete novice to physical activity. Out of practice though he might be.

So it stood to reason that she'd be the person he saw the most of.

Argo was busy with her awkward newspaper-production, spreading rumors hearsay and facts all – even if she was always careful to label them respectively. Agil and Asuna were both reliable sidekicks, but that competence meant that they – like Kirito – at least _tried_ to get through things under their own power most of the time. And most of the others that he helped either ambled onward on their own, or were really obnoxious about calling for help.

Kirito was willing to admit that Sachi would've risked landing herself in the latter category if it wasn't because she was just too timid to resent. Also, he was probably a little bit partial because she was cute. But she was honestly a really nice person, and it was pretty amazing to talk to someone who wasn't laser-focused on clearing the game.

It was like a vacation.

XXX

Kirito's first clue that something strange was going on with the players was when Argo started making comments about mood-swings.

Nobody was really surprised to hear that some of their fellows didn't react well to stress. But using the beckoning-bells in order to ambush and attack other players? As much as Kirito would like to dismiss it as PKers being creative assholes about making others suffer for their amusement, it sounded more like-...

It was hard to describe exactly what it sounded like, and it wasn't helped any by how disjointed all of the incidents became in the retelling. Players would summon another to help, greet them with a smile, wander around 'hunting' for a bit, and then suddenly go completely and violently insane.

There didn't seem to be any kind of gain from it at all, and Argo had gotten at least one message from one of the perpetrators, apparently sounding very contrite and apologetic about the whole thing. She'd tried to contact them back, but had received no answer. None. As in, after the first time, the Messengers directly refused Argo's messages.

Which was crazy, because the only other time they'd ever done that was when she tried to send a message to someone who hadn't unlocked multiplayer yet. And, considering the whole incident, they'd clearly already unlocked it.

In truth, that'd been Kirito's second clue.

Kirito's third clue came when Klein contacted him in panic about something called beast-pellets. Tiny little pills that dulled the pain of dying and made the user hit for damage ten levels higher than they should. Kirito had personally trusted them about as far as he could throw them, but that was mostly because all items like that had a catch.

The catch was simple, once Argo had finally found the records of someone foolish enough to try them. It made it near-impossible to tell friend from foe. And it didn't seem like the side-effects ever really 'went away' even after its supposed timer ran out.

Even then, he didn't really think much of it. It wasn't like he could really help any. And, beyond keeping an eye out whenever he answered a summon, these new drug-addicts of Bloodborne Online was nothing that really affected him.

He didn't even think of how tempting they must seem to someone who was so desperate for making the pain go away.

Sachi. Cute, innocent, scaredy-cat Sachi.

Kirito had died enough times to almost be bored with it at this point, no matter how painful it was to have a pitchfork latched in his spine. He'd had his throat ripped out by monsters of all kinds, he'd been crushed and burned and stabbed and shot.

He'd never quite managed to get shot by the same thing that'd been stabbed inside of him before, but that's a rifle-spear for you. The reason it made it to the top-five worst ways of getting himself killed was mainly that Sachi continued hacking away at him, crying and screaming, asking where Kirito had gone, unable to see that he was the 'beast' she was killing.

Of course he tried to go back, of course he tried to send her a message. But no matter how he screamed at the Messengers, they refused to take the small piece of paper away.

It was as if there was nobody out there to take the message to. As if-...

Kirito remembered perfectly well, one of those first few bosses. A Hunter that'd lost himself to the Hunt, had become the very beast he'd hunted.

In hindsight, that should've told everyone everything they'd needed to know.

After all, beasts weren't human enough to read.

XXX

They hadn't managed to find the source of the beast-blood pellets, not that it would've made much difference considering how every single player would've had to deal with their own specific variation of the source. And how, at that point, it would've already been a moot point. After all, using them was strictly voluntary, and the big danger had been people _not knowing_.

Still even if it'd been hopeless from the start, at least it'd kept Kirito too occupied with hunting down rumors to think too much about letters that he couldn't send, and half-chewed letters that the Messengers no longer had waiting for him.

However, with their focus on rumors of different blood, they'd managed to find a way into a castle belonging to a group called 'Vilebloods'. Not that there'd been anything really worth noting about it beyond a new boss to be killed by.

Up until the moment where Kirito found himself standing in front of a different throne, and a woman sane enough to speak. A queen sane enough to hold court.

"Come, partake in my rotted blood."

Kirito stabbed her through the neck instead, suddenly reminded by a comment from another NPC, about Hunters losing themselves to the blood. Specifically, Hunters losing themselves to the Hunt of other Hunters. PKers.

No wonder that that particular faction had gone and gotten themselves even more messed up in the head lately.

The queen made to reach for his sword, seemingly mostly unaffected by nearly being decapitated, so Kirito hacked off her limbs too.

It was gory work, but such was the life of the Hunter. Not that the queen actually stopped squirming, no matter how small the pieces he hacked her into.

It reminded him a little bit of that woman at the clinic. The pregnant woman at the clinic. Kirito still tried not to think too much about what that item-drop had meant. Kirito would've assumed that the description of 'lining their brains with eyes' was a metaphorical one, if this world had been anything except what it was.

It'd certainly helped explain those multi-eyed fly-people back at Byrgenwerth. A very particular kind of failed experimentation. And about as metaphorical as Kirito's own two hands.

XXX

"Yes, Asuna." Kirito sighed. "I need your help."

Asuna mimed awe-struck flattery and worship.

"Yeah yeah, laugh it up." Kirito really wished that he could've excluded certain people from answering his summon. If for no other reason than because he knew that Asuna would totally lord this over his head for _forever_. "I'm not built for goddamn marathons!"

Asuna grinned at him, snickering glee on her face, understanding his intent even if his words and tone might've been distorted by the nature of the game. There was a moment longer of humor, before Asuna's expression slipped away into well-worn professionalism.

Kirito nodded, the exasperation fading from his own face, and stepped towards the mist-gate. It wasn't that this boss was hard, it was that the asshole refused to stand still and let Kirito beat the shit out of him.

Then again, most bosses had some kind of quirk to them, and at least this one wasn't going to make him swear off eating meat for the foreseeable future. Not that there really was anything to eat in the endless limbo that was the Dream.

Still, there was a special place in hell for a boss that not only killed you, but also forced you to work on your cardio. And the endless raving rants certainly weren't making it better. No matter how curious Argo was to see if the boss was giving some kind of late-game hints.

XXX

Kirito might've been part of the Clearers, but he wasn't always the one leading the charge, and he was pretty sure he'd been slowly slipping further back with his small-time 'vacations' to help the players lagging behind.

It seemed like he was getting close to it though, because they'd lost contact with a whole bunch of people who should've been ahead of them. Whether it was to beasthood or something else, some point in the game where players were isolated as part of the game's final few stages, nobody knew.

Or rather, nobody knew until Argo received a half-chewed letter from a player who claimed to have 'refused the deal'. That was really all it said, and Kirito really wished they hadn't been so goddamn cryptic about the whole mess.

That was his opinion up until he met 'Gehrman' again. Carefully ensconced in his wheelchair, even without his signature peg-leg. The face was different too, as were the clothes, and the voice. The words were the same though, and so was the tone, weary beyond measure.

It was impossible to keep track of time when the moon refused to budge from the sky, but it was _ages_ before they managed to figure out what'd happened.

Gehrman was offering a deal, once the final boss had been defeated, to die at his hands and be freed from the Dream. As if all of the things they'd seen since Kayaba trapped them in this hellhole was merely a bad dream.

Of course, the person who managed to inform them of it had rejected it. Kirito had had the misfortune to actually meet the paranoid bastard once, and him not trusting Gehrman's word for it was perfectly in character.

Then 'Gehrman' was wearing a new face again.

Even then, despite that particular player's paranoia, Kirito didn't actually feel like disagreeing. Gehrman was suspicious at the best of times, and they hadn't heard a word from anyone who'd supposedly been freed. That could mean that they'd really been freed, or it could mean that they'd been 'freed' in the sense that their death had finally been made permanent.

After all, considering how some of the geeks had passed around notes discussing the NerveGear, if the damn thing could directly alter a person's brain-chemistry, who was to say that it couldn't cause some kind of hormone-shock and murder them?

Admittedly, Kirito kind of doubted that Kayaba would've gone back on his word, even if 'his word' was filtered through Gehrman's mouth. The madman was surprisingly fair about even some of his more twisted ideas.

So, to accept the deal was to be released from the game, and to refuse the deal was to be forced into the position of Gehrman. That did bring up the question of what happened to the 'previous' Gehrman when they were replaced, but seeing as nobody would be able to confirm anything one way or the other, there wasn't much point in thinking about it.

What there was to think about though, was that half of the players trapped within Bloodborne Online had refused to play the game. As in, they'd never manage to reach the final boss on their own, no matter how long they waited. What would happen to them?

The part of Kirito that blamed Kayaba for basically every evil that'd ever been thought of guessed that they'd simply be left to rot. Left to remain there indefinitely as the years turned into decades, or until those on the outside bit the bullet and pulled the plug on the remainders.

The part that grudgingly admitted that Kayaba had a thing for fairness in how he'd designed his nightmare, had a very different opinion however. There were never only two options in any decision.

To submit or to fight. But if the fight was _won_ , then why would a player be punished? Unless they'd lost the fight? But that didn't make any sense, because – from the notes left behind – Gehrman was definitely a normal boss as far as the game-mechanics were concerned. So they must've lost _another_ fight, or been punished for _something else_.

So, beyond Gehrman, what could there possibly be that might fight a Hunter that refused to lie down and die?

Really, sometimes Kirito wished that 'insight' actually worked as an intelligence-buff-...

Kirito blinked. Once, twice. Kirito opened up his inventory. 'One Third Umbilical Cord', 'all the Great Ones long for a child'.

Kirito had two of them.

Where was the third?

XXX

It was amazing the things a person could get used to.

He knew she was an NPC, but that didn't make her any less real. In fact, within the game, meeting an NPC was far more 'real' than meeting another player ever could be.

Kirito had just killed a sobbing woman who'd given birth to a monster.

It wasn't-... He didn't-... Kirito wasn't even really _surprised_. There was this dull kind of resignation to it, because of course it would come down to this. Of course Kayaba would make it come down to this.

What was humanity? What was beasthood? What were the Great Ones? What was a Hunter?

Her despairing grief over what she'd birthed, the mad ramblings of the-Iosefka-that-wasn't, the cryptic notes scattered along the way, and the way the world became more impossibly truthful with every maddened corpse that they stumbled across.

'Insight', they called it. But it wasn't. It shouldn't be. It was just a damn game-mechanic.

It was a bit like describing color to a blind man. Except they didn't have the language to even name the color that they were describing.

He could see how long he had, he could see how long until his brain started interpreting the NerveGear's signals into how his brain-chemistry ought to be. It was distant, but nowhere near distant enough to really relax. And every single blood vial that kept him alive to fight, was another nail in his coffin.

At this point, there was no need to fear the old blood. It would either claim him, or it wouldn't.

Kirito held up the three One Third Umbilical Cords in front of him; watching, detached, as they almost seemed to writhe and squirm under his eyes.

To defy Gehrman's offer was to deprive the Dream of its focal point. Not to vanquish the Nightmare of it, but to remove the 'core' of it. The Dream needed it, and with it destroyed, another one would be needed in order to replace it. And unlike what Gehrman did, Kirito doubted that the Nightmare ever phrased its demand as an 'offer'.

To free the Hunters, the Dream must be destroyed. And the only way to destroy the Dream would be to slay the Nightmare inside of it. Except it was the Hunter's Dream, and the Nightmare owned each and every Hunter within its borders.

But a Great One could not own another Great One, no more than they could bring forth a child that would ease their eternal loneliness. And it just so happened that this world was big on the whole 'you are what you eat'-motto.

Kayaba was fair in his twisted mind-games. It was either each for their own, or one remained behind.

One player who'd forfeit their only way back home. Trapped forever, alone.

Two-hundred-thousand people.

Kirito took a deep breath, ignoring the stench of moonlight and blood, ignoring the way his breath nearly caught in a sob, and he opened his mouth.

And bit down.

XXX

Kayaba wasn't an emotional man. True, he wasn't exactly logical either with his dreams and the jaded bitterness lingering in his chest, but he wasn't the kind of man to be truly driven by the recklessness of emotions.

Had he himself participated in the game, there was no telling whether or not he would've succumbed to beasthood early on or lasted all the way until Gehrman's offer was given. To die at his hands and wake up once more, safe in the real world.

Still, he'd paid attention. Watched the ones actually clearing the game at least. Those who'd simply remained within the Hunter's Dream, hiding and shivering in fright and memories of pain-... He had no interest in such things. But the front-line-players, the real Hunters who forced their way onward through the game's many pitfalls, those he'd watched.

He'd watched as that girl who'd started a newspaper of all things began to piece together the truth behind the Ending. He'd watched her reveal it to the others, and he'd watched so many desperately leaping to accept Gehrman's offer, because it was their way out. And then he'd watched one of them attempt to defy him, to reject his offer outright.

Oh, but it'd been greatly entertaining, watching the horror on the faces of them all, when 'Gehrman' returned to the Dream, wearing the face of one of their former comrades. An appropriate answer to those arrogant enough to dare to reach for more than their own personal freedom from this nightmare.

Still, every now and then someone would attempt to defy Gehrman's offer of salvation, and every time they'd take the place of the one before them. After having imprisoned them within their own bodies like that, a mere puppet to the strings of the Nightmare of the Hunter's Dream, Kayaba was willing to let them go. As long as it was in exchange for another puppet to fill their spot. They'd beaten the game after all, he was willing to be merciful at the end of their torture. Within limits, of course.

It'd been nearly two years since they'd started, countless had fallen to the beasthood that would linger even in the waking world, and nobody had survived without scars. Though, with the first group of players breaking away to freedom, there'd be a few months at least until the ones at the end of the pack began to close in on the End, not to mention all of those refusing to fight at all. Bloodborne Online would remain as it was, until the last soul left its confines or went mad to beasthood, whether that be months or decades from now.

There _was_ technically a path out, a way to stop the nightmare from lingering, but-... Kayaba had hidden the clues for that Ending rather well, and – even should it be fulfilled – all that would happen was that the player who chose it would themselves be doomed to remain behind even as everyone else were allowed to escape.

And by the time they reached the End and was given the offer, they'd know about it too.

It was a bit of a shame that there wouldn't be any grand decisive moments for the Hunters, that they'd simply trickle away back into the waking world as fast as their legs could carry them, but it did make for some fascinating reactions from those they left behind. After all, who knew what those on the outside were telling the government about the horrors within the game? Who knew if the government would be pushed to pull the plug on the survivors? Who knew if those left behind would even be able to reach that far without the support and experience of those who'd gone before them?

Less grand-standing and impressive than a final battle would've allowed for, perhaps. But the silently encroaching frantic panic of the situation more than made up for any lack in regards to entertainment.

However, regardless of the sadistically amused tilt of his lips at the thought of this final stage of his nightmare being brought to life, Kayaba didn't consider himself an emotional man. Bitter and jaded, sadistic and ruthless, yes. But, for all that he'd used the lives of two-hundred-thousand people to warp and distort what had once been a dream of beauty, simply because he'd grown to loathe his own youthful optimism of it, it'd all been very methodically thought out.

The cruelties that he inflicted were as fair as humanity's differing biology would allow. The nightmare he'd created was a careful balancing act of calculated horror and deliberate moments to breathe.

So, despite the spitefully cynical bitterness that'd motivated his actions, and the monstrosities that he'd inflicted on the players. In the end, Kayaba wasn't an emotional man.

The boy was barely sixteen. Sixteen. And terrified.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

He chose the third End anyway.

Terrified, desperately missing his little sister, desperately wanting to see the waking world once more, desperately wanting to be free from the nightmare. Determined to do the right thing, regardless.

Kayaba wasn't an emotional man, not prone to fickle recklessness and sudden decisions.

The boy was barely _sixteen_.

Kayaba bowed his head, something between horror and pride welling up in his chest at the sight of the boy who raised his sword against the Moon Presence.

Humans really were beautifully fascinating creatures, weren't they?

The sunlight outside of his window was warm, despite winter being just around the corner. And Kayaba finally gave in to the urge to laugh.

It would've been beautiful. To see a castle floating in the sky, wouldn't it?

And for that, for the tears and the smiles and the laughter and the unyielding spirit, and for letting him see that wondrous scene without bitterness in his heart. For that, perhaps it was time for his great big nightmare to come to a close. Properly, this time.

With a gasping breath, and disbelieving tears in his eyes, Kazuto Kirigaya woke up alongside two-hundred-thousand others.

XXX

 **A/n: ... I kind of really love Kayaba. For all of his ruthless mania and cruel obsessions, I just don't think I can ever bring myself to hate him.**

 **And yeah, this was written almost entirely for the sake of me exploring the game-mechanics of "Beasthood vs NerveGear", along with the other differences between the games.**


End file.
